I would like to share an experience my sister had that resulted in positive outcomes in a series of diversity-related events. My sister works as part of a video game-designing team at her university; she is one of the media design artists. She works with several other individuals ranging from artists to sound designers and programmers, all of which are quite diverse when put together. For example, this team consists of black people, white people, Asians, Christians, non-binary-oriented people, etc.
This combined pool of diverse minds has helped benefit the entire team during game development by trying to create a game that had enough inclusion. For instance, one of the problems some of the team members identified was that the game characters, first and foremost reviewed and approved by the game’s creative director, were almost all homogenous (white) in appearance. The only character that was not white was deemed problematic by some of the minority team members since he was called Street Kid and appeared to be a black kid in loose-fitting, hip-hop/urban clothes, a stereotypical depiction at the least. This sentiment was quickly adopted by the whole team, and, because of their collective concern, the creative director changed his mind and allowed the designers to alter his appearance to be less stereotypical and change his name to Parkour Kid. Currently, the team is also considering dropping a character that may be insensitive to the mentally disabled. The team also tried to create a more inclusive set of characters to make them more relatable to their target audience.
Another instance is when the team rooted out a potential symbol of intolerance in the game. One team member noticed that one of the icons designed in the game unintentionally resembled a white supremacy symbol, something that might have been missed had he not possessed the background knowledge to identify it.
Thanks to the diverse backgrounds and viewpoints of the video game development team, people with mindsets sensitive to potential offenses could notify others about them and ask to change or remove them. The team’s diversity also inspired creativity and innovation by creating a range of different types of characters that highlight the strengths of various cultures, not weaknesses (Hanks, 2021).
Here is a video that I think explains why diverse video games can appeal to a large audience without coming off as including diversity simply for the sake of it. In essence, it is simply unrealistic for people to be homogenous and that should be reflected in games as well.
References:
Hanks, C. (2021, March 31). 6 Benefits of Cultural Diversity in the Workplace. Wonolo. Retrieved October 21, 2021, from https://www.wonolo.com/blog/6-benefits-of-having-a-diverse-workforce/
Roger Pokorny. (2015, December 24). Diversity in Video Games [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi80G2To-Nc
Very informative story and a great learning experience to hear about. I have done two of these quests now and found a number of the submissions I read to have negative storylines. It is great to see a real world example of how diversity can lead to enhanced teamwork and continuity in this game development team. This group should take a lot of pride in their work because far too many times we see companies or groups only correct issues AFTER a problem arises. This group took it upon themselves to thoroughly vet their product and ensure that proper and appropriate representation was provided in this game. That is how it should be done. I believe that without this group of diverse people looking at the game from a number of perspectives, these potential problems would not have been noticed. Great work!